His employers RaceTech said in a statement: "Following a tragic accident today our dear friend and colleague Stephen Yarborough sadly passed away following serious injuries incurred in his role of Team Leader of the Starting Stalls at Haydock Park Racecourse.

Turbo Linn still needs the kid glove treatment at the start but at least she got into the starting stalls unlike another favourite, Escape Route, who dumped jockey Robert Havlin and had to be withdrawn before the mile handicap.

After Wednesday morning's double-blind drawing had assigned starting stalls to seven of the nine Belmont Stakes horses, the presiding track officials had yet to call out the name Smarty Jones, leaving the fates with a choice of extremes for the Triple Crown hopeful.

His career got off to the perfect start with a taking victory in a Newbury maiden last September, but he had failed to build on that promise subsequently, showing a dislike to starting stalls on more than one occasion.

ON television recently I saw the top American economics expert Alan Greenspan, looking like he had just seen the four horsemen of the apocalypse being loaded into the starting stalls, warning of a global economic tsunami.

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